


Some Nights

by d0ct0rd0ct0r



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Autistic Natasha Romanov, Deaf Clint Barton, Deaf Steve Rogers, Jewish Bucky Barnes, M/M, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Nightmares, Past Brainwashing, Queerplatonic Relationships, Trauma, Universe Alteration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-10
Updated: 2015-03-10
Packaged: 2018-03-17 07:31:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3520697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/d0ct0rd0ct0r/pseuds/d0ct0rd0ct0r
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Home had been apartment #337. Home was in between cold metal walls. Home was someone who hadn't been there for decades. Home was the space between metal, where sheets of frost blossomed under 0 C. Home was notes on playing cards and holding hands at night on accident. </p><p>Steve finds an apartment leased to a "Iakov Wintyr" and decides to take his chances.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. and some nights i'm scared you'll forget me again

It took him weeks—not even counting missions and recovery time in between—to track down a viable lead. Hundreds of thousands of lines of words and numbers on pages later, he had a name. It wasn't too hard to get started on possible aliases (middle name, mother's maiden name, father's name, siblings' names) because what Steve didn't know, he could look up with almost frightening ease. And it still took weeks to dig up an address, an apartment number, leased to a Mr. Iakov Wintyr. 

And then it took an extra week for him to find the—he didn't know what it was—to actually visit. A name like that was begging to be found, but all Steve could do was move through his daily routine with a head like a bag of dust. The address repeated itself in his mind as he imagined all the ways it could go, from good to bad. The hard part was figuring out which outcomes were good—he almost convinced himself he would die, or that he'd find a corpse, or there would be a stranger behind that door. 

Eight days after he found the address, Steve forced himself out of bed early and walked to the apartment building. He didn't need the address written down, the words burnt in his mind, and it was in a part of the city he knew. This was an exercise in trust—he went out with none of his gadgets, no weapons, nothing SHIELD-issued, not even a Swiss Army knife on his keychain. 

Trust. The one piece missing from the puzzle. Steve stood with his arms wide open, waiting for someone to fall back toward him. If there was anything for sure, though, it was that there was nothing to be had in return. 

* 

In the building, the ceilings were low and the walls were cracked, but there were bright lamps in the hallways and going up the stairs. Steve counted the numbers on the doors and spiraled up the stairs until he was on level three, standing before a door marked "337." It was unremarkable, but Steve saw (or hoped that he saw) imprints, marks that belied an unusual presence. Maybe that chip in the corner? Were all of the door handles this flat? 

He didn't even touch the handle. He was afraid to even knock, tense through his body, hands twitching at his sides. He closed his eyes, took a breath, and knocked on the door. 

No response. 

Steve waited what he figured was an appropriate amount of time for a response, then slumped in defeat. The apartment probably belonged to some stranger who was out at work, and the name was a coincidence. Besides, that's not a name someone would use if they were trying to stay undercover. That's not even a name someone who unconsciously wanted to be found would use. 

Steve left empty-handed and empty-hearted. 

* 

That didn't stop him from trying again a few days later. Nightmare after nightmare plagued his sleep, riddling it with patches of brief consciousness where it was hard to breathe. They weren't all memories—bleeding out in the snow, fingers succumbing to frost bite, crystal flakes on his eyelashes, and the only thing he can see is a flurry of white above and a dark silhouette at the edge of his vision, and then grey-green eyes as sharp and impersonal as ice, a boot on his chest that pushes out more air than the snow itself, and the folding in and falling down sensation of waking. Even though it was starting to warm up as spring came closer, and Steve had never minded the cold, he couldn't sleep without a heavy blanket or comforter, and even then he woke up freezing. 

So he did the only logical thing: he returned to the apartment. 

After dinner, this time, maybe 7:30. He walked again. Was he shivering because of the air or out of anxiety? Steve tried to play it off as the temperature, though deep down he knew he was terrified. Social interactions were hard enough, but there are basic scripts for those. What is someone supposed to say to their best friend-turned-would-be-assassin? Someone who would appraise him as clinically as a doctor, but with thick shard of ice behind the gaze. 

Steve wiped his palms on his jeans and attempted to push down the anxiety. As casually as possible, he made it back up to the third floor. His feet put him in front of the door marked 337. He hesitated. Was it going to be the most awkward wrong number scenario ever, or would he leave fighting for his life? Would the man he called his friend even be there? Could there be a dead body behind the door? 

Steve leaned forward and pressed his forehead against the door, hands in his pockets. He groaned. Then he said, "If you're in there, please tell me." It was hopeless already. He didn't even wait to sink into a crouch before folding his legs in front of him. There was the faintest hint of light coming from beneath the door. 

He shifted onto his side to get a look through the crack, trying to discern anything. All he saw was bare wood. But it was a lit space, which meant there was someone inside. Steve sat up again and knocked on the door. 

"I can hear you in there, you know." No, he couldn't. They both knew that (assuming that there was someone behind the door, and that they resembled someone he once knew). But maybe, out of sheer attitude, someone would tell him that he couldn't. 

Steve leaned his forehead against the door again, his knees brushing its bottom. "I'm going to wait here until you talk to me." 

He left around 11:30, and he could see his breath in the cold air beneath the streetlights and it scared him. 

* 

All of these years later, he couldn't shake the habit of making two plates of hash browns with breakfast. Potatoes were cheap, easy to find, easy to store and cook. You could make them a hundred and one ways and they tasted good with anything. Steve never did manage to lose his taste for them. 

He also never lost the habit of cooking for two. Though he'd been living on his own for the past year since they woke him up and put him in an apartment, he still made food for another person. He'd never lived on his own before. His memory for details meant that there was a can of someone else's preferred aftershave on the edge of the bathroom counter, and he couldn't bring himself to throw it away. It was perfectly good aftershave. Maybe he'd need it some day. 

(Steve conveniently ignored the quiet voice that told him the mourning would be worse if he used it.) 

Every morning, Steve ate two plates of hash browns and tried to remember to stop himself from doing the same the next morning. But he found that he couldn't shake the habit. His head was still in the last century before his first cup of coffee, even with his nerves lit with pseudo-memories and the thin sheet of glass that put a computer in his pocket. 

He had never lived alone before. 

It took another week of nightmares of knives that caressed his scars, old and new alike, for him to return to the flat. He left at night, walking around the few people still out this late. The light pollution hid the slivered moon and stars. Steve's hands were tight balls in his pockets, palms sweating even though the air was still cold. He faced the crumbling apartment. 

Walking back to room 337 was like a dream, the stairs and hallways melting away to the heavy door with three numbers on its front. Steve didn't even try to knock this time. Instead, he laid on the floor on his belly, one eye closed, looking in the gap under the door. Still nothing but bare, hard wood, old enough that the footsteps of a hundred years had worn away its varnish. It revealed nothing. 

Steve couldn't bring himself to move away just yet, so he waited, patient, body automatically slowing and cooling so he wouldn't appear to a heat-seeking camera. The floor didn't change. Nothing on the other side of the door changed. 

And then, there was a boot. 

Just one boot. It was ripped up, dirty, barely held together by the shoelaces that wrapped all around it. More than anything else, it was familiar. He'd seen boots like this before, and he already knew where. Steve steeled himself. 

The boot didn't move for several minutes, and when it did, it disappeared from Steve's eyesight. In its place, a spiral-bound notebook hit the floor. From the black markings along its sides, it looked like it was full. A notebook? Steve wondered. What would he put in a notebook? 

He was too distracted to notice the vibrations on the floor until the boot was again in view--both boots, actually. The toes faced Steve, and they were shoulder-width apart, completely still. Steve rushed to his feet, eager to greet his once-friend--but nothing happened. No voice came from the other side of the still-locked door. He wasn't sure if time had dilated suddenly or if he really wasn't getting a response. It took him at least ten minutes to decide it was the latter. 

"Please talk to me," Steve said, voice soft but audible through the door. Even if he'd whispered, the apartment's occupant would probably hear it. A long time ago, someone had asked him if he could eavesdrop on conversations a room over, and explained that the serum was supposed to give you enhanced hearing. Of course, it was a closely-kept secret that Captain America was hard of hearing. Nobody even realized it when Stark started making those advanced hearing aids... 

Thinking of old friends made his heart hurt. 

"I'm going to wait out here until you're ready to talk," he said, sitting down a few inches away from the door. He could swear he faintly heard a single, sharp bark of a laugh from the other side. 

Steve stayed until he found himself falling asleep where he sat and noticed that there was no longer light coming from beneath the door. When he checked, the room was dark. It was nearly two in the morning when he got home, and he slept till nine, suffocated by dreams of distant, crackling shots through his head.

* 

He went back, again, a week later. Steve wasn't ready to give up. Fury'd said that there wouldn't be any missions for at least another month while they analyzed the results from the previous ones. He was free to do as he pleased. While spending days waiting for a door to open to a once-friend now-stranger wasn't his idea of leisure, it felt more productive than trying to sleep through dreams about ice-burnt wounds. 

The route to apartment number 337 seemed shorter than ever. He hardly had to look at the street signs to make sure he was in the right place. There was a certain feel to the building, whether it was something Steve projected or an objective property, and it clung to his skin from the moment he entered to the moment he left. Sometimes it felt colder in there than outside. 

Steve knocked once, then sat in front of the door, elbows on his knees, head in his hands. The minutes moved slowly even without a timepiece--he'd even gotten his watch from SHIELD, which meant that it was chipped. This was part of trust. Wearing clothing that wasn't chipped, leaving all of his electronics at home. Steve refused to betray his friend. Even though they'd been separated by seventy years, ice, and brainwashing, he still considered the man on the other side of the door his friend. Even if Steve was no longer his friend, he would always be Steve's. 

He left after hours of no response, coming home at two thirty. Steve fell into a fitful sleep. The next day, he returned to the apartment, sitting in the same place and playing the same game. Perhaps this routine would lure out a conversation. He remembered the way they'd adhered to a simple routine, even before they were in the military. It was a comfort. 

There was still no response at the end of the week, but there was further confirmation of life behind the heavy door. Steve saw the boots, pacing in circles. He saw notebooks on the floor, pens scattered around them. He saw hands and arms moving in flashes of peach skin and silver metal, doing push ups. He saw the cigarette ashes on the floor and wondered when the apartment's occupant took up smoking. He saw the uneven way time passed on the other side of the door, the lights going on and off at two- or three-hour intervals. If he could hear that well, Steve imagined that he'd hear the sounds of disturbed sleep and nightmares. He imagined that he'd hear a familiar voice around unfamiliar words. 

Steve slept no more easily at night, but his sleep was relatively uninterrupted. He still woke up with the burning on his skin of summer scars and numb lips, but he didn't find himself drifting off during the day. Between the time of his waking and the time he left for the apartment building, he was lifeless, stiff, only acting out the movements of life. His mind never left the building. His mind never even left the space under the door to apartment 337. 

* 

Steve knew he had an unfair advantage in that he could pull out the name he used for the man on the other side of the door. It must have made him wary. The word was a powerful trigger even when he wasn't lucid enough to connect it to his past life; Steve didn't know how much damage it could do now. It would provoke a reaction, he knew that much. But he was unwilling to jeopardize his once-friend's emotional health and general well-being for the purpose of getting a reaction out of him. 

So Steve hit the books again, spending his mornings and afternoons reading up on ways to connect with someone you love who has changed. Dozens of sites offered the same information: scent was a powerful, but subtle, memory key. But smell? How could he bring the smell of a tiny, dusty tenement apartment in Brooklyn in 1941 to the present day? What could do it? He considered the aftershave, but figured that it would be too messy. Steve tried his old cologne, but they'd changed the formula and it smelled different--not to mention, gave him angry red hives on his wrists. 

He stewed, nightly visits to apartment 337 growing shorter and shorter. His sleep became restless again. One night, he even woke up breathless with his head sandwiched between two pillows. There were dark circles under his eyes, and a hint of darkness in his glowing face. 

One morning, he silently went through the motions of making and eating breakfast. The shredded potatoes were almost ready, and he was about to put sausages on the stove when he remembered that there was enough for two. He'd made two portions of hash browns again. Familiar, warm, filling. They'd work perfectly. 

It was eight in the morning on a Sunday, but Steve still bolted from his apartment with tinfoil-wrapped hash browns in his hand. He made the eighteen-some block journey to the tall, rundown building without an incident. There was something about him that felt unreal, elevated. Like his spirit, or consciousness, was floating a few inches off the ground, even though his feet were firmly planted. His chest was tight and cold. Up the stairs he went, down the hallway, to his usual spot outside the door of apartment 337. 

The light was on under the door. Steve took a deep breath and knocked. No response, but was he really expecting one? Why would it be different, today of all days? Still, it was worth a try. If anything else, it announced his presence. 

He sat down and uncrumpled the top of the tinfoil sachet. Light condensation and the smell of cooked potatoes came out. He hoped this would work. Steve cleared his throat and put the makeshift tinfoil plate on the floor in front of him. "I brought you something," he announced. He pushed the tinfoil closer to the door. "I-it won't fit underneath. You'll have to open the door to get it." 

No response. 

"This isn't--I'm not trying to hurt you." His words were failing him. Steve sighed. "If you're watching--" As much as he wants to, he doesn't look through the crack under the door, seeking green-grey eyes. He just tears a bit of the mass of hash browns off and eats it. Just like that. It's a peace offering, not a poisoning attempt. 

"I'm leaving now," he added, standing up. He looked down at the hash browns on the floor. "You--you should really get these. Before someone takes them or throws them away." They both had the natural instinct to save every scrap of food possible. Steve was maybe only exploiting it a little. "I'll see you tonight?" 

* 

It became a routine. Steve had most of his breakfast, then left and ate his hash browns outside the door to apartment 337. Sometimes he talked a little. Most times, he didn't talk at all. Then he'd leave the other serving of hash browns there and walk home. 

He didn't bring food at night, but that was because he waited for most of the night, catching naps leaning against the wall across the hall from the door. A few times, he woke hungry and thought about bringing something. It took him a few visits to remember, though, and when he did, he brought a bag of dried fruit and beef jerky. Food that kept well. 

Steve drifted off somewhere around one in the morning and woke ten minutes later to the growling of his stomach. He pulled the bag out of his pocket and absently munched on a couple of dried apricots, thinking of a way to get to the occupant without hurting either of them. 

He hardly noticed when a lined piece of paper came from under the door. 

When he did, Steve was suddenly sitting upright, heart pounding, mouth drying. He hadn't even noticed what set him off--his wide eyes glanced around the area and finally came to rest on a piece of notebook paper. Written in clear, almost-familiar block print, the note only said one thing: "Share?" 

Steve laughed, something that startled even him, a fizzy sensation from the crystallization of the anxiety in his stomach that rose up and through his mouth. He managed to stop himself before he woke anyone up. But the sensation remained in his gut, feather-light and fluttering and familiar. Well. Almost-familiar. 

"Always," said Steve, and he placed the biggest piece of jerky in his bag on the piece of paper. He pushed it part of the way under the door. And, to his delighted surprise, the man on the other side of the door pulled the paper out of Steve's view.


	2. progress report: i am missing you to death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a mission.

The mission was simple: go in, locate the source of the radiation, collect a sample. Steve was only going as backup, so Stark could grab the sample even if they were ambushed. Barton was the third member of the team, and his job was to stay high and watch out for any unwanted guests. 

It was top secret--even moreso than usual. 

"Absolutely do not talk about this," said Assistant Director Hill, sliding the manila folder of information across the table to Steve. After all this time, they still kept things on paper--easy to disseminate, easy to completely destroy in the case of an emergency. 

Steve felt Fury's gaze on the back of his head as he skimmed the info in the file. Pretty standard. Just another former HYDRA lab, long since abandoned, but Stark's detector drones measured considerable radiation in the area. It was well-secluded, a low-roofed hollow shell of a building in a forest of tall, thick pines. The floor plans indicated eight floors below ground. 

"Don't even tell anyone you're on this mission," Fury added, walking around the oval table with his hand clasping his wrist behind his back. He circled back to Steve's seat and put his hands on the table, leaning over to look him in the eyes. "No one. Understand, Rogers?" 

"Yes, sir." The way Fury said "no one" sent shivers up his spine. He couldn't place what it was, but it was definitely some kind of threat. Steve closed the envelope and passed it to Fury, who took it without another word. 

He left the building (SHIELD was operating out of Stark's tower for now) and let the provided chauffeur drive him home, feeling watched all the way. 

* 

Steve wrote a note to keep things quiet and safe. He folded it and put it in an envelope alongside a small matchbook. The last line of the letter instructed its recipient to burn it after reading. Just for safety. They were both sticklers for safety, the recipient even more than Steve. He'd know what to do upon seeing the matches. 

He couldn't leave without telling his best friend goodbye, at least for the time being. What would happen if Steve left without any warning? If, one day, he just didn't deliver hash browns in the morning or jerky and dried fruit at night? If there wasn't a knock on the door or silent conversation? They could voice entire sentences through the brush of their fingers alone. The trust was coming back, and Steve was determined to keep it alive. 

When he dropped off the hash browns the morning of the mission, he added a tinfoil pouch of dried fruit and jerky. The letter rested beneath the two pouches. On the outside of the envelope, it only read: “to the resident of apartment #337.” Steve had debated on which name to write there. The old nickname wasn't an option. Would his old name work if it was written out in full? Or should Steve stick to the code name? What about the name used to rent the apartment? He didn't want to blow anyone's cover. “The resident of apartment #337” was neutral and clear enough. 

Steve felt a hollow aching in his chest when 11 PM EST came and passed while he was strapped into the back of a quinjet on his way to god-knew-where. Nobody spoke. Stark had fallen asleep at least an hour ago, and Barton was well on his way there. But Steve—he was used to sitting up silent late at night. He craved the company of his once-again-friend. 

* 

The mission went off without any of the expected hitches. The problems all came from—what else?—the sensitive egos of some of those involved. Stark was kind of a problem. 

His brilliant initial idea to get into the underground complex? Laser a hole through the floor. 

“You're going to let a lot more radiation leak that way, you know,” Steve warned him, watching the machinery of the suit spin and click into place as the laser mechanism came online. The air around Stark and his suit heated up, and Steve stepped back to stand a safe ten feet away with Barton, near the front wall of the complex. 

“Would you just relax, Captain Chill-pill?” Even with the helmet on, Steve could hear Stark's eyes rolling. “I know what I'm doing here. Besides, I'm not the guy who jumps out of flying vehicles to divebomb a literal deadly assassin.” A bright blast of white light came from the suit's hand, and Stark drew a large, careful rectangle on the floor with it. It was bright enough that Steve had to slide down the shades on his visor, and it made a screeching sound so loud both he and Barton turned off their hearing aids. The metal glowed bright orange, then white, and then fell down. 

The floor started shaking, crumbling around the hole that Stark had made. He fell first. In a flurry of fluid motion, Steve turned to Barton, signing “up.” With an eerie sense of calm, Barton turned, pulling out his crossbow and shooting a grappling arrow through the door. Just as the floor beneath them threatened to give way, Barton offered an arm and Steve hugged him around the middle. 

Steve's feet touched the ground and he ran, keeping with the momentum of the grappling rope. Once Barton's feet were safely grounded, he let go, falling to his knees. His legs felt like gelatin, and the ground was still shaking beneath him. Barton released the rope and folded his bow, never losing his footing. The man had balance like no one else Steve had ever seen; but Steve knew where Barton came from, knew how he developed the skills he had. If there was anything that made the Avengers really “mighty,” it was the vast range of backgrounds they had. 

He managed to get to his feet once the ground stopped shaking. Steve turned around and saw only darkness beyond the door. Stark could fly, and he knew that, but it didn't stop him from calling out for the guy, running toward the door and clinging to it and looking into the darkness. There was a spot of red and yellow light at the bottom, and Steve couldn't see if it was moving. He turned his hearing aids back on, reconnected them to the communication channel. “Stark, you there?” 

“Yeah, yeah.” The lights at the bottom of the darkness moved. “I see you, Captain Safety. 'm alright.” The sound of metal scraping against metal came in from Stark's end, and Steve watched as he cleared out a space at the bottom of the shaft. “I'm pretty close now. You and Barton keep lookout while I go deeper.” The glow of Stark's hand laser cannon penetrated through the darkness before the sound of its activation came through the lines. “When I'm halfway up, get the radiation cargo box and get in the jet with Barton. Got it?” 

Steve nodded, pulling back from the door. His eyes burned as they adjusted from the darkness of the shaft to the midmorning sun outside. “Sure thing.” He looked toward the shade of the tall trees and met eyes with Barton, already sitting on a high branch. Steve caught a couple of slow, deliberate words. The gist of it was, "is Tony ok?" 

"He's fine," Steve signed back, just as carefully. "He's doing the laser thing again." 

"What kind of a nerd is he?" 

"The kind that doesn't think things through." 

"Yeah," signed Clint, "obviously."

* 

Steve felt like being frivolous, so he brought eggs and bacon with the hash browns the morning after he came back from the mission. “The vacation was nice,” he said through the door, after wishing his friend a good morning. “I brought you something special, so I'm gonna split now so you can eat it while it's still warm, alright?” He put the tin foil pouches in the usual place. The pouch of scrambled eggs had a plastic fork taped to it and a smiley face scribbled underneath it. “I'll see you tonight.” 

Steve thought he heard the door open as he turned the corner to go down the stairs, but then again, he couldn't hear for shit. 

He spent the day being shuffled from agent to agent and telling and re-telling the events of the mission to each one. Finally, he got to Assistant Director Hill, who took his summary one last time before officially ending the mission. At the end of their discussion, she turned off the voice recorded and stood up. She offered a hand and Steve took it. Hill pulled him in close, over the desk, so she could whisper into the darkness between them: "Not another word to him. Got it?" 

Steve played it off and smiled at her, didn't stop smiling until he was out of the building. His heart beat fast. As much as he wanted to visit apartment #337 immediately, it would be outright thoughtless to go right from SHIELD's temporary HQ. He headed home at a brisker pace than necessary, feeling eyes on his back for most of the time. 

At his apartment, Steve moved through the motions quickly and carefully. He didn't want to leave a gap for SHIELD to assume that he was doing something bad or unwanted. Steve showered, had a late lunch, and read for a couple of hours. As soon as the clock turned ten, he closed his book and changed into his safe clothes. Steve pulled a cap over his face, too, and grabbed some gravel on the way out to slip in his shoes. Hopefully he'd be able to trick any face or gait recognizing software. 

He announced his presence by knocking out shave-and-a-haircut on the door. His hands shook as he pulled a slip of paper and small pencil out of his box of playing cards. "Be careful. SHIELD knows you're here," he wrote in neat hand. He folded and tucked the paper between two pieces of jerky that he pushed to the door. The man on the other side took it without hesitation. 

Steve couldn't get his hands to stop shaking, so he dealt himself round after round of solitaire. He lost all of them, unable to focus on the cards. Looking away from the failed attempt in front of him, Steve leaned back against the wall. He really could use some rest. Preferably, in a bed. There was hardly any point to the length of his visits--he wasn't interested in the apartment or being sociable--but he wanted to keep an eye on his friend. Steve would never lose him again. 

At some point, he must've fallen asleep, because Steve was very suddenly laying on the floor. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. They burned when he opened them, feeling the sting of too much air. His joints cracked as he righted himself, aching in the cold air of the apartment. How did he fall asleep on the floor? Did he slide down in his sleep? 

Steve scooted back to where he had been sitting, which is where his face was when he woke up. The half-finished game of solitaire was still spread out in front of him, albeit mussed beyond recognition, smeared across the floor. He rolled his eyes and sighed, figuring he might as well put them away--it was late enough for him to start heading home, especially if he was passing out in the hall. The more time he spent sitting in front of the door to apartment #337, the less time he spent sleeping. His eyes were the blue of the bruises he got as a kid. Steve was secretly glad that Bucky couldn't see him. 

He idly counted the cards as he collected them, stacking them back into a neat deck, all facing the same way. But it felt oddly light, and there was more room in the box than there should have been. Steve pulled the cards back out and counted them, then re-counted them. Forty-six. He was short six cards. 

Steve stood up and looked around on the floor, but nothing was there but the heat his body left behind. He patted down all of his pockets, under his shirt and down his jeans. Nothing. No cards to be found. “Who the hell would steal playing cards?” he asked out loud. 

There was a flash of red in the corner of his eye. 

He crouched down to investigate it, finding his missing Ace of Hearts sticking out from under the door. There was a line in neat block print along one side--“looking for me?” Steve knew that handwriting. The recognition made his heart go from a beat to a flutter, a pound, sending nausea up his throat. There was a familiar pressure behind his eyes. Steve fell a little forward on the balls of his feet, face and forehead pressed against the cold door. 

The door. He was in front of apartment #337, almost more familiar than his own, looking at a graffitied playing card sticking out from under the door. Steve tugged it out and put it in the deck box. “Very funny--” Steve paused in the blank space where a name should have been, leaving an awkward hanging statement. “Give me the rest of the cards.” 

“No,” said the writing on the Ten of Clubs, which slid back, beyond Steve's reach, when he tried to pick it up. Steve groaned. 

“I need to sleep,” he said. “Just give me the cards.” 

The same card with the same note stuck out again, but there was a cheeky smile drawn next to the word. It mimicked the face Steve had drawn on the breakfast pouches that morning. Steve dove for it, sliding his fingers though the crack under the door to chase after the laminated paper. He almost had it when his fingers brushed something warm and smooth. Instinctively, he investigated the obstacle--it felt like fingers, but harder than bone and smoother than skin. It took him a moment to realize what he was touching. 

By the time Steve tried to thread his flesh fingers in the spaces between the occupant's metal ones, the hand was gone. In its place, beneath Steve's hand, were five standard playing cards. 

*

They played silent games of cards that lasted hours in the chilly, musty hallways of the old building. Steve complained several times that his joints were hurting from the cold, but he never left until at least two in the morning. It was their schedule, quiet and careful as it was. The brushing of hands was forgotten behind graffitied cards with short, taunting sentences. Besides, the man in apartment #337 had always been wary of sudden touch. 

Steve arrived a little late that night, complaining about the blistering cold wind and going on about how much he missed Stark's joint-warming coats, how it was a shame they had a tendency to explode. Violently. He heard nothing from the other side, and the bag of dried fruit and jerky was still on his side of the door. Frowning, Steve pushed it in a little further before investigating the crack. The room was dark. At least this was confirmation that his friend was sleeping, which comforted Steve. He worried about the other's sleepless nights, trying to imagine the nightmares he would face. There was no way he'd let anyone touch his friend again, not after this. 

He stood up, joints cracking, and knocked on the door. And, for the first time, the door opened. 

Steve walked inside cautiously, glancing around as his eyes adjusted to the dark. The hallway was lit by streetlamps streaming through the windows. There was no light in here at all. Thankfully, it didn't take long for his enhanced vision to kick in and for him to start making out shapes in the dark. He stumbled around tall stacks of notebooks toward what looked like a bed, a slightly raised rectangle on the ground. It was cold when he felt it, but it was a mattress, and clearly used. 

Something had happened. The man in apartment #337 was no longer there. 

* 

Steve immediately came to the conclusion that SHIELD had something to do with this sudden disappearance. When he'd returned with a duffle bag and flashlight, he saw the signs of a struggle near the bed--torn sheets, notebook piles fallen haphazardly. They were neatly stacked everywhere else in the room. 

He collected all of the notebooks, not finding anything else worth keeping. There were bottles of water in the minifridge across from the bed, and a stack of paper plates on top of the dingy microwave that looked older than Steve felt. 

As he left the room, he stepped on something small and flat. He backed up to investigate, picking up a familiar cardboard square. Matches. The book of matches Steve had given him to burn the first letter. When he looked inside, all but two of the matches had been used. Smart, Steve thought, of him to burn the second letter. 

He put the duffel full of thin spiral notebooks in the safe place under his bed as soon as he returned to his apartment. But Steve kept the matches in his pocket--when they weren't in his hand. They felt like the last real thing connecting him to his once-again-friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ha ha ha this was so fun to write /sarc  
> again thanks to my stevey for inspiring, like, All of this.   
> i'm so impatient tbh expect part 3 in a few minutes.


	3. if home is where the heart is then we're all just fucked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve has social anxiety and gets a lift to have some Very Stern Words with the big cheeses in Stark/SHIELD/Avengers/Whatever Tower.

Steve almost walked all the way to Sam's house, running on anger and tense muscles, but he stopped himself before he was even out of his apartment. No. He needed to conserve energy for the fight ahead. Even if there were no actual blows--the emotional energy this would take was immense. He hadn't dared to look in the notebooks, hands shaking too badly when he tried. Besides, the scrawls inside looked like a bizarre mess of the Roman and Cyrillic alphabets. Steve knew a little Russian, but only spoken. He couldn't read or write it for his life. 

So he poured a cup of chamomile and lavender tea (it was supposed to be calming), sat down, and puzzled over how he was planing on getting to Sam's place. His hands still shook as he sipped at the scalding tea, his joints protesting from nights spent stiffly sitting in a hard and drafty hallway. A cab would be outright inconvenient, but Steve had no intention of asking Stark for assistance if he could help it. He checked a map online, then grabbed one of the many credit cards he'd pilfered from Tony and left, heading for the trains. 

The train ride was short--there was only so much distance between them, enough that Steve could have walked if he'd really wanted to, but the downtime was still aggravating. He could feel every jolt and shiver of the train. The scenery and cities passed in his peripheral like a dream. It was almost like tunnel vision, but mentally, and Steve thought he finally understood his friend's old obsessive interests. Thinking about him, about their shared childhood and skin brushing against skin, only made it worse. It was a sound free of its sutures from weeks of picking, and now he was digging around in if like he was trying to find gold. 

It felt like it could have been minutes or days between Steve opening the door to the empty apartment and Steve knocking on the door to another, lived-in apartment. He was floating two inches behind and to the right of his body. Steve needed sleep, because he couldn't after he saw the hungry jaws of the doorway swallowing his once-friend whole. He idly wondered how they'd actually managed to detain him. The man in apartment #337 was a skillfully trained perfect soldier, and Steve had seen him take out several men at once. There had to have been something they exploited... 

The door opened and stalled Steve's thoughts. Sam was there, in a light long-sleeved shirt and soft sweatpants, looking for all the world like the friendliest not-morning-person in the history of time. Steve was again amazed at his easy amiability. "Steve?" he asked, eyeing the supersoldier. "What's eating you?" Steve knew his body was all sharp lines of taut, stressed muscle. 

"I need your help to break into Stark Tower," he said. 

"Is there a specific thing preventing you from going in the usual way?" 

Steve nodded. "I don't know where he is, but I'm looking for someone. Someone I need to break out without leaving casualties." 

"This isn't my skill set, Cap, and you know that." Sam folded his arms across his chest. "Nat could help with this, you know." But Nat hadn't contacted him--or anyone else, for that matter--since she left the infirmary. Nothing to worry about, considering who it was, but it was terribly inconvenient. "What else do you need?"

Steve tried his best to make his face blank. "Just a hand getting in, maybe a distraction?" 

"You're not the guy who approaches situations fist-first. What do you really need my help with?" Sam, in all of his infinite patience, asked. His calm voice and serious eyes under flattened, solemn eyebrows made Steve want to smile despite himself. Perhaps that was why Sam made a great counselor. 

And, like a great counselor, he'd managed to tease out the issue in the first five minutes of the conversation. 

"I need someone to help me talk to Tony," Steve admitted. 

* 

"We could've taken the front door, you know," Sam said, landing the Quinjet atop Stark Tower (now, apparently, labeled Avengers Tower). 

"I'm not playing any games with him," Steve said, jumping out as soon as it touched the ground. He hadn't even worn a seatbelt or harness. But Sam had long since learned that trying to talk safety precaution sense into Captain America was fighting a losing battle. And Steve's lines were so rigid, his knuckles so white, that it would be wrong to make him go through more bullshit. Sam understood that. 

But, for fuck's sake, it didn't mean he was comfortable flying around with an unsecured passenger. 

Steve was wearing a blue plaid button-down and jeans, looking reasonably modern and respectable. JARVIS made no comment as he entered the passcode to get into the building. "He's tried to get me to move in for almost a year now," he confided through grit teeth. "Probably to keep an eye on me." Scam wasn't sure if he meant Tony or Fury. 

Tony, however, was the one who met them halfway down, across the hall in a nondescript white hallway. He wore a blazer over a thin-with-age Styx tour shirt, a black tie loosely hanging around his neck. Still in jeans and sneakers. It looked like he's thrown on the blazer to seem more official. "And just what the hell are you doing here?" 

"Talking to you." Steve stepped forward first. 

Sam had heard the stories, seen the footage, sure. But there was nothing that could have prepared him for the tension that filled the room like gelatin when Tony and Steve talked. It was frightening. 

"Are you planning on moving in?" 

"You know damn well what I'm here for." 

"Is it about the joke I cracked about your ass on the news? Because I wasn't kidding, you could bounce a quarter off--" 

"Where is he," Steve said, sounding like he was about to start cracking necks if he heard the wrong answer. 

Neither Tony nor Sam had never seen him this angry before, and the almost deadly look on the Captain's face was--unusual, at best. He swallowed behind dry lips. "It depends who you're talking about," he said, playing off the tension with his natural humor. "Fury's in his office on the ninetieth floor. And if you're talking about Jesus, well, I haven't found him yet, but I'd be glad to let you know if I do." It was a tumble of syllables, fast enough that Steve had to pause and listen to pick out their meaning. 

Uh-oh. Wrong answer. "You know perfectly well who I mean." At least Steve wasn't cracking necks (yet). 

"Listen, okay, you're gonna have to go through Fury to get to him." There was an emphasis on the word him, like Tony was talking about a closely-guarded secret instead of a person. "Like I said, ninetieth floor." 

"Show the way," Steve answered. 

Tony rolled his eyes and turned on his heel, heading back toward the elevator. "Alright then, Captain Tightass." There weren't just shadows under his eyes, but in the creases of his mouth, the listlessness of his hands at his sides, the slowed breathing. 

"Take it easy, Cap," Sam said, rubbing Steve's back and leading him toward the elevator. "It's gonna be alright." 

* 

Director Fury's face was decidedly not alright. 

"I'm sorry, Captain Rogers, but I'm under orders from the United States government to keep him under the tighter security I have available." He sounded like the kind of man who directed the entire world, not just a couple dozen agents and some Quinjets. A diplomat. 

But Steve was also a diplomat. "I'm better security than anything you've got." His hands were tight balls in his pockets. "Besides, he's absolutely harmless, he was just sitting in the apartment eating takeout and TV dinners and you're acting like he's going to murder the president?" 

"He's a threat," Fury reminded Steve, "and that's something you need to keep in mind." 

A threat wouldn't write the same love note over and over again in English and Russian, Steve wanted to say. A threat wouldn't pull his hand away when we brushed fingers. A threat wouldn't-- 

He couldn't finish the thought, let alone voice it aloud. It was hard enough just coming here, confronting Tony and Fury and whoever else stood between him and the former resident of apartment #337. Steve was pale and sweaty just thinking about how much more interaction this would necessitate. In another world, Sam reached out and squeezed Steve's hand to keep him present. And, as they say, love prevails; Steve pushed on, pushed against the people blocking him from his most important thing. 

"But," Fury added after a moment (to Steve, another lifetime), "I'll give you clearance to enter the detainment center." 

Steve's heart jumped, crashing through his chest and throat like an elevator punching through the roof of a building in an ascent toward the stars. "Thank you, sir," he said around the beating mass in his throat. He swallowed it down, into his chest so it hurt like heartburn. Steve almost added, "I promise I won't let you down," but it was irrelevant. 

"Stark," Fury barked. Tony, pretending to be interested in something else while eavesdropping on Steve, turned around to face the director. "Please show Captain Rogers to the detainment rooms." 

* 

The guard was a bulky, smug-looking asshole with the kind of look on his face that made Steve want to punch a wall. The kind of look bullies have, lording their superiority over everyone else. He'd heard it in the guard's voice when he'd said, "You don't have clearance to access this floor." 

"I do." 

The guard had just snorted. "Since when?" 

"As of now," Steve had replied, showing the guard the direct memo from Director Fury. 

The guard looked no less smug for it. "Careful," he said, leading Steve into the hallway between detainment rooms. "This ones dangerous." There was, indeed there had only been, only one person in the cells: the man from apartment #337. There were no windows. But he and Steve were again only separated by a wall, just layers of steel and who knows what else. It was like his stomach had bottomed out and dropped the weight it was  
carrying. 

Steve didn't know what to say. He pressed his cheek against the wall, almost hugging the cool metal. "You better be doing okay in there," he threatened. 

* 

Not everybody believed in his innocence, and nobody as deeply as Steve. Even as Fury and Hill pushed back against their superiors, the US government, and the UN, they asked Steve over and over if he was sure. Sure of what? That a man who flinched away from the lightest brush of contact, who couldn't make eye contact to save his life, who liked tuna salad sandwiches with potato chips--that the man Steve trusted like no other in the world wasn't a threat.

Because he was "not the man he used to be." 

No shit, Sherlock. Neither was Steve. Seventy years does that to you, asleep or awake, brainwashed or on ice. And considering all these SHIELD folks were unwittingly feeding HYDRA the entire time--they barely had room to speak. 

Natasha could have communicated it much better. 

Sure, she forgot words sometimes; sure, she has breakdowns before large-scale public events; sure, her easy stance covered steely willpower to disregard frivolous motion. But she knew. She understood, and maybe that was the problem. Tasha was busy or elsewhere for a whole month, playing phone tag with Steve and Sam, leaving terse voicemails about meetings or whatever. 

Steve understood, but god damn if he didn't hate it. 

* 

Steve told Clint to talk to her. 

Clint told Steve to go fuck himself. 

Haltingly, hands shaking like they hadn't in years, he explained. They wouldn't listen to him. He was too biased. He was too close to the situation. He loved the man in the detainment cell five floors underground, loved him too much to not trust him. Natasha could explain the way they hurt him, turned him inside out. 

Clint was laughing, bitterly but genuinely, too hard to say anything for a few minutes. Once he could, he asked Steve if he knew what it was like for someone to play with your brain, to push you out of your head and shove in a stranger. 

Steve didn't. 

Then, like a wedding vow, Clint signed "I do." 

* 

Steve stayed as long as they let him--until the third guard in a row finished his shift and mentioned to someone that Cap was still there, still sitting across the hall in a silent staring context with the thick wall. Sometimes, he'd fall asleep, waking up to a blanket on his shoulders. Sometimes Tony would wake him by hoisting him up and attempting to carry him out of the tower and all the way home. 

But to Steve--as cliche as it sounded--now that his best friend was back, that's all home meant to him. Home had been apartment #337. Home was in between cold metal walls. Home was someone who hadn't been there for decades. Home was the space between metal, where sheets of frost blossomed under 0 C. Home was notes on playing cards and holding hands at night on accident. 

Steve had, not for the first time, the sneaking suspicion that he was in love with a man. But that wasn't it, no; he was still in love with the same man. The man he'd thought of as he prepared to die. The touch and voice that haunted long, lonely nights in cold empty tenement rooms. The smile he saw whenever he passed by the places where'd they'd stolen kisses or held hands behind their backs. 

Whether or not he knew who he was, Steve was in love with his best friend (the man in the detainment cell) (the former occupant of apartment #337) (the Winter Soldier). 

*

The biggest problem Steve encountered was not the trained killer in his best friend's mind, that made him scream and fight shadows on the walls at night. No, it wasn't even the reluctance to admit that Clint (and, therefore, Steve) was right. Not even close. 

It was the goddamn security guards. 

The self-righteous, oh-so-strong men in Kevlar and whatever else Stark had laying around, who were so elite for being put on guard for the Winter Soldier himself. It didn't hurt that they were all getting generous bonuses for the service. 

Steve did twice their job without armor, sleep, or pay. 

He held out a week until one of them taunted him with a few choice words about their relationship. That guard was the first one to get a bloody nose. 

After the fifth, Tony left a note in the hall. "Rogers: stop fighting security. I don't need to pay for another broken nose." Had he not learned from the very man in custody? Did he not know that no matter what you said, Steve was going to fight, going to put bullies in their place? 

He laughed at the note. 

There were more security guards, and Steve tolerated them all until some asshole had the great sense to mutter something about “queers” and “Communism.” But Steve was good. He listened to Tony's note. 

That guy entered the infirmary with a broken arm. 

*

"Don't treat him like an animal," Steve said, approaching the guy on guard. 

He was tall, but still shorter than Steve, and strong, but not as strong. To anyone else, he'd even look threatening. He didn't back down. "Sir, this is a maximum-security detainment chamber holding a man wanted for treason, war crimes, and at least fifty counts of murder. I've been advised to use as much force as deemed necessary--" 

Steve silenced him by picking him up by the front of his uniform. The guard struggled, trying to get his taser. "Don't talk about my friend that way." In the blaring lights of the detainment hallway, the dark circles under Steve's eyes looked deeper and more dramatic. "You hear me? Don't--" 

"I'm pretty sure they built this to keep me in, not you out." 

He was so startled by the voice that he dropped the guard. It took him a moment to place it--he hadn't heard it in months, and it sounded different with a joke than a threat. Steve hadn't heard a joke in that voice in decades. He rushed to the reinforced, bolted door. The wall was almost two inches thick here, done in multiple layers to hamper escape tactics. Steve opened the viewbox and looked inside--looked into familiar hazel eyes. "You're okay," he exhaled, the weight of the world rolling off his back. "Thank god, Buck, you're okay." He stopped himself. "If--that's okay for me to call you?" 

"It took you long enough," the man in the detainment cell said, and Steve coughed up a shaking laugh of relief. 

"You're okay," Steve repeated. 

"I'm fine," Bucky replied. "You okay?" 

"Yeah," Steve said, "yeah, I'm better." 

"Glad to hear it. You look like hell." 

Steve sourly noted that Bucky looked worse, at least as far as the live feed from the security camera showed. He'd lost weight, lost more sleep than even Steve. There was a resigned curve to his back, shoulders bowed under weight (figurative or literal, Steve couldn't tell). But he said nothing. "I feel like hell," he admitted. "But--god--I'm so glad you're okay. So glad." 

"So glad," Bucky echoed, turning from the view box to give a crooked smile to the security camera in the corner. 

* 

Steve officially moved into the tower a month after Bucky. He packed his clothes and belongings, stacked them up neatly in a barren room in the apartment, and let the hired chauffeur take him to his new home. He carried a bag, a familiar warm canvas duffel bag, full of everything he didn't want Tony to touch--pictures, letters, recovered items. 

Bucky's match and notebooks. 

Stark already had a copy of Steve's apartment key, and he wasn't sure if it was good or bad that he wasn't surprised. The floor Stark built for him, the size of a New York City penthouse, still astounded him. Huge. Steve had never occupied so much space. Did he even have enough stuff to decorate it? To fill it? 

There was already stuff there for him. A kitchen stocked with appliances, a bathroom with a walk-in closet the size of his childhood tenement apartment, a king-size mattress hardly even taking up room in the bedroom. There was even something that looked like a high-tech, stainless steel sauna ("for your cough," said Stark on a sticky note on the door. Steve had no idea that Tony even knew he still had asthma). Temperature controls for each room. 

What was a guy supposed to do here alone? If the small, cheap apartment was hard, this was impossible. Every last one of the Commandos could have fit on that floor, with enough space for privacy. 

It was an airplane hangar of a house. 

Steve still insisted on setting up the twin-sized frame he had in the smaller apartment, sleeping in the corner opposite the huge plush monstrosity of a bed. That was a bed meant for two people, at the very least. It could easily fit three, and Steve had a suspicion that Stark had an identical set up in his bedroom, even if both Pepper and Rhodey had their own floors. 

Ghosts haunted the halls at night, just as Steve suspected, but JARVIS had both an EMDR utility and adjustable binaural beats to help him fall asleep. Steve didn't realize it until later, but his preferred setting was Bucky's resting pulse. 

* 

It was only so they could be closer. 

Steve still insisted on "monitoring" Bucky, still kept his nightly vigils in the hallway, only broken by Bucky's disrupted sleep cycle and terrors. Steve could murmur soft words through the door that set everything right. On occasion, they talked, but the space was far too open for them to discuss intimate details, state-secret sexual orientations (Steve didn't have much of a preference; Bucky no longer had much of one at all). Even on the rare occasion where Steve ended up on his floor, he asked JARVIS to project the live feed from the detainment cell. 

It was two months before he was officially allowed "visitors." 

Not that many would come, of course, except Natasha (whose schedule was suddenly very free) and Steve. "And I thought chivalry was dead," she said with a smirk when he let her go first. He turned off the feed in the hall and left them to whatever they needed to discuss, probably in Russian. Steve had trouble enough with spoken English to even start thinking about learning another language. 

He dozed as they talked, and Natasha was the one to wake him as she left. Her hands were fluid as she told him that Bucky was waiting, he better hurry up. Steve noticed that she used Clint's name sign for Bucky, as opposed to Steve's own. 

Walking through that door was one of the hardest things Steve ever had to do. 

The cell was mostly empty, but decent enough. A real bed, a desk, stacks of empty notebooks by its side and a stack of filled ones on its surface, a sectioned-off bathroom. 

And Bucky. 

Standing in the middle of it all, in pajama pants, a shirt, and a hooded jacket, hair tied out of his face, staring at his feet as his hands hung by his sides, idly snapping his fingers to a tuneless beat. He looked up when Steve entered. He looked up, and he met Steve's eyes. 

Steve met his back. 

Fuck that "real men don't cry" bullshit. Steve's cheeks were already red and his eyes already sore for lack of sleep, but he didn't give a damn. Bucky had seen him worse (and vice-versa). His words were watery when he asked, voice creaking like warped wood, "touch okay?" 

Bucky nodded. "Touch okay." 

Steve almost tackled him with a hug. In return, Bucky almost crushed his ribs. 

They stood there in silence for a long, long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the end (for now).   
> (no seriously i've already started writing more but it will be on its own. a sequel instead of another chapter.)  
> one more thanx to STYVYN whom i love and find inspiring, who also puts up wyth me whyn y put the lettyr y yn everythyng.   
> also thanks to FOB and fun. for having great lyrics that inspire me.   
> also: everyone reading this should go listen to FOB's new album American Beauty/American Ps*ho because i'm not even kidding you it is literally every Stucky feel ever, you WILL cry.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm not crying YOU'RE CRYING  
> but for serious:  
> \- inspired by the lovely, all-tolerant Styvyn (you know who you are). thank you for your everything.  
> \- i just have a lot of feelings okay  
> \- btw, Iakov is the Hebrew origin for the name James. traditionally, Jewish kids have a Hebrew name, and a James would be Iakov (i know because i, too, am named that)  
> \- he spelled "Wintyr" as such because he could


End file.
